


spaced out on sensation

by kairiolette



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2014-10-14
Packaged: 2018-02-21 03:13:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2452646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kairiolette/pseuds/kairiolette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin and Haru share a shift at the local, seasonal Halloween store. A retail job suits neither of them. Based on the AU prompt: Working at a halloween store together wow try on his costume for me?? AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	spaced out on sensation

**Author's Note:**

> halloween-themed filth based on this AU post: http://lethophxbia.tumblr.com/post/98190262712/halloween-aus-deep-conversations-and-wow-i-wonder
> 
> more specifically: "Working at a halloween store together wow try on his costume for me?? AU"

Haru inflates what must be the twentieth ghost-shaped balloon—about ten more than his boss asked of him; it’s probably more overkill than initiative at this point—just before he hears Rin's voice calling him from somewhere down the costume aisle.   

Haru has never held a real job before. (It shows, according to Rin, who really isn’t any better or any friendlier to the customers.) Working at a seasonal Halloween shop is, as Rin had put it, with a knowing grin and an arm around Haru’s shoulder, a good distraction for Haru to keep him from thinking about how the Iwatobi pool will be closing for the winter any day now. It makes pretty okay money, too, but Haru has never been too concerned about that, though now he can splurge on some new swimsuits without feeling too wasteful.

What the shop lacks in space it makes up for in festivity—something Haru is proud of, because he had meticulously decorated most of it. The halls are decked: orange and purple streamers, skeletons literally hanging from the ceiling, costumed mannequins at the start of every aisle. During the daytime hours all throughout the month of October, it gets packed with parents and children and even high school students. Tonight, once Haru had flipped the “OPEN” sign to “CLOSED,” he turned around to face what looked like a post-Halloween bomb zone. It would be well over an hour before they finish cleaning and could lock up shop for good.

At least he’s lucky he doesn’t have to tackle it alone, Haru guesses, tying off the final helium-filled balloon.

"Haru," comes Rin's voice again, impatiently calling him to get over here, already. Haru lets the balloon float up to the ceiling with the others, doubting how lucky he really is.

The costume aisle always makes Rin and Haru exchange glances and cringe whenever they share shifts. It's the most crowded corner of the store, and now: the messiest. Gaudy accessories line the scratched-tile floor; misplaced items hang off the wrong shelves. Haru’s head feels heavier as he makes his way toward Rin.

Rin, wearing the same standard black polo and orange tie outfit as Haru—though his tie is loosened, slung around his neck like he slings his towels—has his hands behind his back when Haru approaches him. He raises his eyebrows at Haru, his face fresh with some energy that Haru, at this point in the night, hopes is as contagious as it usually is.

"What?" he says. Then Rin steps in toward him and he turns to stone. Rin gets too close, always too close; he smiles mischievously and Haru holds still even as he should be backing away. He doesn't realize what Rin's doing—he's too distracted by Rin's hands, coming up to plop something light onto his head, gentle fingers brushing the fringe against his forehead, curling hair behind his ears. He only wakes up when Rin starts snickering, and slides a pair of sparkly blue star-shaped sunglasses onto Haru's nose. Haru sends him an unimpressed stare, and is too traumatized by this sudden proximity to hit Rin's phone out of his hands when he raises it to snap a photo.

"Delete that," Haru demands, ripping the wig—pastel pink and nearly shoulder-length—off of his head. His face grows warm, not even because Rin snuck in a snapchat—he just can't believe he had been so caught up to let it all happen in the first place. He feels like he needs to splash water on his face, even more so than the normal urge. Rin just cackles, gives him an evil wink as he glances up from his phone.

"Already sent," he says, "Ten seconds of it to Sousuke."

That’s fine, Haru really doesn’t care about that, so he grabs a mask that dangles crookedly off the wrong hook—a full-face zombie mask. He reaches up to Rin, who doesn't move to retaliate even though he knows exactly what Haru's doing. Haru pulls the elastic band around Rin's head, and wonders with a degree of paranoia that pisses him off if he’s being a touch too gentle, like Rin had been just seconds ago. When he yanks his hands away, he can barely even see Rin's eyes through the holes of the mask.

"Ha! I like this one," Rin turns to the floor-length mirror next to the nearby dressing rooms, "Scary, right?"

"No," Haru says, but when Rin leans back against him to take a selfie, he puts up two fingers.

"What have you been doing this whole time?" Haru asks, finally taking off the sunglasses once Rin rips off his mask. Rin turns to him with a glare.

"Do you have any idea how boring it is, taking inventory of returned items?" he grumbles. He then throws an arm around Haru’s shoulder and draws him in close to his side.

“What have  _you_  been doing this whole time, Haru?” he demands playfully, mouth by Haru’s ear. Haru thinks of all the balloons he has inflated like they brainwashed him; the elastic stretching thinner and tighter as the helium expanded it. Haru intervening just before it popped. He shrugs off Rin’s arm.

He lets Rin know exactly what he has been doing for the past hour, and Rin doesn’t seem too thrilled for him.

"Anyway, you should help me with this, instead," he insists. Haru watches Rin carefully, who sends a hopeful smile toward him.

"What do I have to do?" Haru asks, inevitably, and Rin's smile broadens.

"Put everything that is broken, or ripped, or not restock-able into this pile," he gestures to a purple bin full of wigs, snapped accessories, and at least one ripped costume, " And put everything that can be placed back in its aisle over here," he points to another more orderly orange bin, full of stuff, "And," he starts, grabbing for the red feather boa resting on the shelf in front of him; he tosses it across Haru's shoulders, reels him in closer with it, "wear this."

Haru scowls, but allows Rin to adjust the accessory around his neck. His fingers drift up to the collar of his shirt, and he begins to loosen Haru’s tie.

“To complete the image,” he explains, smirking softly. Haru leans back, tugging off the garish item. He moves to get started, grabbing the largest thing in front of him on the return-item shelf: a costume sealed in its plastic casing. A ketchup bottle costume? He holds it with both hands, considers it.

He thinks he understands why Rin keeps getting so distracted.  

"I'll wear the feathers if you wear this," he says, holding the bag of the costume up to Rin. Rin cocks an eyebrow.

"Why would anyone buy that?" he sighs, running his hand back through his hair. Haru shrugs a shoulder, starts to pull it out of its packaging.

"At least they returned it," he reasons, though he kind of appreciates the almost mascot-y vibe the full-body costume gives off.  Rin hums, watching him. He then starts laughing, grabbing the costume out of Haru's hands.

"I'll try it on if we find the mustard one for you," he laughs, and Haru brightens, beginning to dig purposefully through the mess of assorted stuff. As long as Rin doesn’t take anymore pictures.

-

Three costume changes later, and thankfully only one stealth-pic snapped by Haru of Rin making a decidedly satanic face with crooked angel wings strapped to his back, the bins have hardly been filled any more than they had been before. They work in silence, now; Haru picks up a pair of seventies-style sunglasses with one of the lens missing, tosses it into the purple bin. Picks up an unopened, seemingly untouched stack of pumpkin paper plates, places it gingerly into the orange bin. He's digging through the pile of returned items on the shelf when something larger than the various eye patches or face paint kits catches his eye.

It's another costume; the bag for it has been opened before, but neatly. The large, bubbly font on the front reads 'Adult Stripe Sailor Costume.' Haru swallows. He turns to Rin.

"What should I do with this?" he asks, indicating the costume.

"Oh," Rin starts, examining it. It's kind of embarrassing; the costume is so obviously one of those awful, objectifying,  'sexy' little numbers. Rin rubs the back of his neck. "I guess take it out of the package and check for tears."

Haru does so like his fingers are stiff, suspended in a substance thicker than water; he pops open each individual plastic button that holds the bag together and carefully slides out the costume. It’s silky in his hands, but made of cheap, stretchy material. Obviously form fitting. The sleeveless faux-corset part is white with navy pinstripes along the sides, a bright red bow at the center of the gold-trimmed sweetheart neckline. The navy skirt of it, made of a rough mesh material, flounces out like a tutu and has white anchors printed along the hem. It’s meant for a longer body, obviously—the tag reads ‘XL’—and it comes with a little sailor hat, too, which Haru draws out of the bag as well.

Haru looks to Rin out of the corner of his eyes; Rin is watching him assess the costume, eyeing him as he holds it like it actually is made of silk.

“I can’t tell if there are rips or not,” he explains, swallowing some lump that settled in his throat. He looks up; Rin gives him that strange narrowed-eyes look again. He smiles, but it’s uneasy.

“Maybe you should try it on and see, then,” he says, quickly turning back to the mess of returned items in front of him.

“You should,” Haru says, a beat too fast and an ounce too serious. Rin turns his head like he had been slapped, eyes wide and face pinked.

“I—what?” he stutters out, voice hushed rather than explosive, eyes curious rather than angry. Haru's throat goes dry. Trying on a sailor costume isn’t much different from trying on a ketchup bottle costume, he rationalizes.

“I can’t tell if there are any rips,” Haru says again. He looks up, and Rin’s looking at him, too; normally they would both avert their gaze but now they hold it, they can’t look away. Rin’s eyes are half-lidded and he looks almost sleepy, but his gaze flickers from Haru’s eyes to his mouth to his outstretched hand. Haru’s face goes warm as Rin’s fingers brush against his when he reaches out to grasp the costume by its rough skirt.

“There will be if I try it on,” he counters, speaking slow, as if others could hear if he didn’t, as if he and Haru weren’t the only ones in the store. Haru wants to say  _I don’t care, I don’t care about the costume_ _,_  but Rin wrenches it out of his hands, wraps his other hand around Haru’s wrist.

Haru, for a second, thinks Rin is about to get angry with him—Rin narrows his eyes, sets his mouth in a straight line. Instead he turns, stalking over to the changing rooms, Haru attached by the wrist and trailing along dazedly in his wake.

-

Behind the black curtain of one of the well-secluded stalls, the light glows dimly above them.

Haru cannot remember ever being this impatient before. And he has waited long, cold, pool-less winters as if they were blurs of insignificant time rather than months. But here, seconds move fast—maybe because his heart is pounding through every inch of his body, his skin is flushed and burning under the surface. There's rustling behind him, but otherwise Rin is silent. Until.

"You can't laugh," he says, preemptively defensive in a way that's so Rin, Haru's chest aches.

"I won't," he promises.

"And no sneaky pictures, either," he grumbles.

"None," Haru promises once more, "Can I turn around now?"

He waits for a response with clammy hands. Rin finally puffs out what kind of sounds like an affirmative, and he doesn’t yell at Haru as he starts to peek over his shoulder. He takes it as permission to spin around fully, trying not to trip over his own feet in his haste.

The light casts shadows on Rin's face, under his worried eyebrows, under the twitching, bowed curve of his bottom lip. It probably accentuates his cheekbones, too, but Haru can only look at his face for maybe a fraction of a second. His breath stutters in his throat, he takes a halted step closer as he lets his eyes rove downward.

 _Tight_ , is the first word he thinks, because every inch of the costume—and Rin’s body underneath—just is. The white material clings, stretched so thinly across Rin's chest. Haru has seen Rin next to naked countless times before, but his waist—had it always been this tiny? And his shoulders, uncovered by the costume, that broad? The second thing Haru thinks is nothing: his mind powers down as if a button had been pushed. He instantly knows nothing but Rin in front of him, only Rin. It feels distinctly like giving in to sleep after a tireless day. Like drinking water after trekking through a desert.

"Stop staring," Rin mumbles, eyes low and burning through Haru's own. Haru can't stop, though, and he only realizes he's reaching out to touch when Rin grabs his outstretched hand. Haru looks up and Rin looks overwhelmed, teeth worrying his bottom lip and face flushed. Haru tries to retract but Rin doesn’t let go or push back; he tugs forward, placing the palm of Haru’s hand against his stomach. Haru can nearly see the lines of muscle through the material when he looks, can see Rin's thighs peeking out from under the skirt of the costume. He slides his hand down and over taut fabric.

Rin sighs shakily, arches in to the touch. His mouth parts, inches away from Haru's own—Haru doesn't think he has ever been this close to Rin, at least not under these conditions. It makes Haru’s head whirl, makes him move as if attached to strings guided by some puppeteer. He looks down to where his other hand drags along the pinstripes veering out with the supple curve of Rin's waist, where it curls around Rin’s hip. He walks it back until he holds Rin between his hands, one on his stomach, the other on the small of his back.

"What are you doing," Rin demands, voice quavering, and he probably meant to growl it, or snarl it. Haru opens his mouth to suck in a breath through teeth he hadn’t realized he had been clenching. He brings both hands to rest on the silky material covering Rin's chest, his fingers restless, vibrating with a need to be everywhere at once. His fingertips trace the hem, along the low neckline and back, until Rin has to lift his arms so Haru's hands can meet behind him once more. He draws them back again and lets his fingernails drag and catch along the fabric, takes note of the goosebumps dotting Rin's shoulders, the way his nipples perk up against the material.

"I'm checking for tears," Haru replies, finally, and though he whispers it, the words echo loud between his ears. He steps to the left, circling around Rin, who remains mostly still— his shoulders shake in a way he probably doesn’t even realize. Haru’s hands never leave him, even as he stands facing Rin's back, where Rin's shoulder blades jut out over the fabric clinging to his torso. Haru traces the jagged track of the zipper, which strains and isn’t zipped up all the way, until he rests his hands flush against the bottom seam of the costume. He drags them down into the ruffles of the skirt that cover Rin's ass.

"Uh," Rin stutters, and he sends a glare over his shoulder. In a flurry of sudden movement, he grabs Haru by the wrists, tugs him forward until Haru stumbles up closer, his chest plastered to Rin’s back. His chin bumps against the soft skin of Rin’s shoulder.  "Is that really why you wanted me to try this on?"

Haru rests his palms back against Rin's stomach, can feel how warm Rin’s skin is. He just has to turn his head and his nose is buried against Rin's neck, behind his ear.

"Rin," he sighs there, and Rin shudders, lets out a strangled noise that Haru feels vibrate against his hands. "Rin, you look cute."

"Th-that's exactly what you said when I was wearing the ketchup costume!" Rin growls, looking once more over his shoulder. Their noses brush together, Rin's eyelashes flutter when his eyes fall shut and Haru watches. "Have a different reaction."

Haru frowns, digging more firmly against Rin with his hands before bringing one back to ruck up the skirt.

"I am," he mumbles, and he nudges forward just as Rin nudges back, his clothed arousal pressing into the soft triangle of flesh where Rin’s thighs curve up into his ass. Rin's mouth falls open into a gasp, turning his head to helplessly nose against Haru’s temple. Haru rests his chin on Rin's shoulder, brackets his arms around Rin’s waist as they rock together, subtle restrained movements of ebb and flow.

"You're not wearing the hat," Haru comments when he notices the article of clothing on the floor, neglected. Rin scoffs, arches his back, and Haru's fingers dig into his hips as he grinds marginally upward.

"I'm not wearing the hat," he confirms gruffly. "This is embarrassing enough, you know."

"Why did you put it on, if you’re embarrassed?" Haru whispers, just as he lets his fingertips dance along the silky hem separating the corset and the skirt at Rin’s waist.  

"Because you asked," Rin snaps, as if this much should have been obvious to Haru. He peels Haru's hands off his waist and brings them down, places them at the tops of his shaven thighs. Haru freezes, Rin’s skin rivalling the silken material of the costume. Then he starts to drag his hands up and under the skirt. He must have gotten it right because Rin grunts, letting his head fall back and against Haru’s. It's funny—Haru can’t see his face from this angle, but he can see his eyelashes and how they blink rapidly. His fingers grope around, cupping Rin over his underwear as he presses his hips against Rin's ass. Rin hums against the palm of his own hand when Haru slips his fingers down the front of Rin's underwear, touching him everywhere he can with little finesse. Rin’s hips can’t seem to decide if they want to lurch forward or grind backward.

" _Ah_ —you're," Rin starts, breathing raggedly into his hand and getting cut off when Haru accidentally thrusts particularly hard against him, "You’re pretty perverted, huh? Should have known."

"’m not," Haru mumbles into soft juncture where Rin’s neck meets his shoulder. He wonders if it's okay to kiss him there, to drag his lips along the tops of his shivering shoulders, against his neck, at that hollow spot behind his ear.

"You're really into this," Rin continues, reaching behind Haru to push his hips closer, to make more of that indescribable friction. Haru sighs, lips parted against Rin's skin.

"No," he replies, choked, still rocking to some unheard rhythm with Rin in his arms, "Just you."

"Hm?" Rin prompts him, hissing as Haru's hand runs light over the tip of his leaking cock, down the length of it and back up again, his underwear pretty much shoved all the way down.

"I'm into you," Haru says, and he feels like everything stops. The opposite of a spinning room—everything stills: his heartbeat, his heaving breath, his roaming hands. Rin stills, too. Haru wonders for a hair of a moment what his life would be like if he were still safely tying strings to balloons, far far away from the clutter of a costume aisle.  

Rin looks behind him again, his eyes wide and lust-blown, lips shiny red as if they have been bitten.

"Yeah?" he asks, breathless, eyebrows drawn together and upward, and Haru's nodding before Rin even finishes asking.

His hands are yanked out of Rin's underwear when Rin spins around, throwing his arms around Haru's shoulders and bringing their lips together in a crash of a first kiss. All Haru can do is hold him closer, kiss back with an equal energy until they’re panting against each other’s mouths, grappling at shoulders, waists, hands, hair. Rin pulls his hands away, tongue still in Haru’s mouth—Haru never thought he’d like that, never thought he’d have about .3 seconds to realize just how much he like it—and starts to tug the costume down, the material slipping easily down his chest. Haru helps him pull it past his hips and down to his thighs, until his briefs are exposed. He’s sticking out of the top of his underwear, looking hard and heavy—Haru strains painfully against his pants at the sight. Rin’s fingers flex where they grip Haru’s shoulders, mouth tilting back toward Haru’s. Haru takes two steps forward, driving Rin back against the wall of the stall, tugging their lower bodies together as Rin gasps into his mouth.

Rin plants one hand against Haru’s jaw, pacing the kiss and dragging his other hand up and down Haru’s trembling arm. He starts to smile, Haru realizes; kissing with less technique as his lips curve. Haru keeps pressing his lips to Rin’s regardless.

“Hey, Haru,” he whispers in between a kiss, Haru pulls back just enough to see Rin’s lowered eyes, red cheeks. “You should put your hands back where they were before.”

Haru tilts forward, pressing his mouth to the curve of Rin’s neck. “Don’t know what you mean.”

“Here,” Rin brings his hand down to curve along where Haru is hard beneath his pants. He laughs sweet against Haru’s ear when Haru’s hips stutter forward, when Haru lifts his head from Rin’s shoulder as if electrocuted.

“Woah, you’re already—” Rin, smug, grinds the palm of his hand down against Haru’s length, feeling the hard shape of it, “It’s been like ten minutes, that’s pretty impressive.”

“It’s been longer than that,” he mumbles, muffled into Rin’s soft skin. Rin pauses, halts his movements for a moment, but then lets out another understanding, tickling breath of laughter. His other arm draws Haru in closer.

“You okay?” he asks, but there’s a desperate whine at the edge his voice—there’s a desperate whine at the edge everything, right now, and Haru is okay. He brings their lips back together to prove it.

Rin doesn’t take his hand away as they kiss, keeps giving Haru that delicious pressure and Haru fights to keep his eyes open. He lets both hands drift down to the waistband of Rin’s briefs, eases them down all the way over the bulge of his cock. Rin mouths against Haru’s temple, breathing harshly, one-handedly fumbling with Haru’s belt as Haru takes Rin’s length in his hand.

Rin shudders like he’s freezing—which he probably is, Haru realizes he’s wearing a lot less clothes than him at this point. Haru presses closer, tries to cover the front of his body with his own as he fists his hand up and down over Rin’s cock between them, the drag dry but, judging by the way Rin’s hips roll into the touch, satisfying. Rin finally manages to force Haru’s pants open and underwear down, and they stroke each other off in time, ragged breaths and the wet smack of lips the only deafening sounds in the entire store.

"Bet I can make you come first," Rin whispers, harsh against the tender skin beneath Haru's ear. Rin starts twisting his hand as he fists along Haru's cock with purpose—how does he  _know_  how to do this,  _god_ , it almost annoys Haru. Is this how Rin touches himself? Haru's knees wobble.

"I'm not," is all the nonsensical response he can manage, mimicking Rin's movement, circling his thumb at the head of Rin's cock. Rin bucks—he liked that, Haru does it again.

"You are," he insists through clenched teeth, stroking faster, gripping tighter in retaliation. As Haru’s hand matches his pace, the wet tip of Rin’s cock brushes against the material of Haru's shirt. He looks down to watch it disappear and reappear through the tight circle of his hand, and the way his legs go numb makes him wish they were significantly less vertical right now, that he had Rin beneath him on the floor or, better, in his bed.

"You are," Haru spits back, biting his lip hard when Rin bites his neck, a sharp drag of teeth. He retaliates, kissing wetly by Rin’s earlobe.

"You a—ah," Rin cuts off into a moan; lower than Haru has ever heard him speak. His head slams back against the wall, and it would have hurt if either of them could feel anything else right now. His mouth falls open and Haru wants to capture it in his own, but even more he wants to hear all the sounds tumbling out of him. Rin’s eyes roll before he clenches them shut, his hips rock and shake into Haru's grip without rhythm—it's unlike anything Haru has ever seen before, Rin’s body convulsing before his, because of his. He spills onto Haru's fingers, Haru's arms, and his own hand never falters for more than two seconds around Haru's cock. Haru follows so closely, as usual; he buries his forehead against Rin’s shoulder, peers down to where they're both holding each other and releasing—he lurches up into Rin’s grip as he comes with a whimper, and then collapses down into his waiting arms.

Rin holds him instantly, but he stumbles forward, driving Haru backward until the backs of his knees hit the bench behind him. He sits and Rin drapes himself close, arms around Haru’s shoulders, bare legs resting across the length of the bench and over Haru’s thighs. His head falls against the crook of Haru’s neck, close enough that Haru can smell his shampoo. He lets his hand rest against Rin’s knee, after tucking himself back into his underwear, and he leans them both back to rest against the wall behind them as they catch their breath.

Rin suddenly snorts, lifts his head up. His grin is so close to Haru’s face he has to lean away to see it all.

“Find any rips?” he teases, nodding to the costume at Haru’s feet. Rin must have kicked it off all the way before crashing into Haru’s lap. Haru looks down at the crumpled clothing.

“No, but look,” he points down; Rin cranes his neck to follow his finger.

“Disgusting,” he says when he sees it, the streak of come against the dark skirt of the costume. He grimaces and Haru wants to kiss him again, but he also kind of wants to overheat and explode. “That’s definitely yours.”

“We can’t restock it now,” Haru replies. Rin lifts his head to look at him.

“I don’t think you’re a good fit for a retail job,” he says. Haru blinks at him; he scoffs, “No, Haru. We can’t restock it now.”

Haru nudges forward, pressing his sweaty forehead against Rin’s sweaty cheek.

“You should keep it, then.”

“What, with your stuff all over it?” Rin turns his grin to Haru, their noses nuzzle together and Haru pouts. Rin laughs, sounding delightfully scandalized. “That’s seriously messed up, you pervert.”

“I’m not a pervert,” he argues, because seriously, it takes two, but he forgets any train of thought when Rin cups his face with both hands and kisses him until his breath runs out.


End file.
